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Categories: Biology: Marine, Paleontology: Fossils

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Ocean acidification will likely almost triple by the end of the century -- a drastic environmental change that could impact important marine species like fleshy seaweeds, algae that grow vertically and promote biodiversity in more than a third of the world's coastline. To get a better idea of how seaweeds might fare in a rapidly acidifying ocean, a team of marine scientists subjected a common fleshy seaweed species to the acidification levels expected by the end of the century. They report that increased acidification impacted the seaweed's chemical balance, made both its structure and its tissues weaker, and reduced its overall chances of survival.

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A new study appearing in Science Advances compares Pleistocene vegetation communities around Lake Baikal in Siberia, Russia, to the oldest archeological traces of Homo sapiens in the region. The researchers use the 'remarkable evidence' to tell a compelling story from 45,000-50,000 years ago with new detail: how the first humans migrated across Europe and Asia.

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Palaeontologists have discovered X-ray evidence of proteins in fossil feathers that sheds new light on feather evolution.

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Violence was a consistent part of life among ancient communities of hunter-gatherers, according to a new study that looked for signs of trauma on 10,000-year-old skeletal remains from burial sites in northern Chile.

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Scientists have mapped the reproductive strategies and life cycle of an endangered coral species, the purple cauliflower soft coral Dendronephthya australis. Lab-grown larvae have been successfully introduced back into the wild.

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New research shows that mussels are pretty crafty sea creatures: able to withstand marine heatwaves by adjusting their heart rate and other physiological functions, boding well for their survival in future decades as the world heats up.

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A groundbreaking study is reshaping our understanding of crocodile evolution by pinpointing the onset of slow growth rates to the Late Triassic period, much earlier than the previously assumed Early Jurassic timeline. The research highlights newly discovered fossil crocodile ancestors (known as crocodylomorphs) that exhibited slow growth rates, similar to modern-day crocodilians. Intriguingly, these early crocodylomorphs were not the lethargic, semi-aquatic creatures we are familiar with today; they were small, active, and fully terrestrial. The study also suggests that this slow-growth strategy was not a mere evolutionary quirk but a survival mechanism, as only the slow-growing crocodylomorphs managed to survive the End-Triassic mass extinction. This stands in stark contrast to the fast-growing dinosaurs of the same era, setting the stage for the divergent evolutionary paths that would later define their modern descendants.

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Marine virologists analyzed sediment from the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on Earth, and identified a new bacteriophage.

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X-rays of an ancient jawless fish shows earliest-known example of internal cartilage skull, unlike that of any other known vertebrate.

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An international group of researchers have discovered a previously unknown species of large foraminifer, shedding new light on the ecological evolution and biodiversity of coral reefs in the Ryukyu Islands.

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A new study sheds new light on the origins of modern brain cells. Researchers find evidence that specialized secretory cells found in placozoans, tiny sea creatures the size of a grain of sand, have many similarities to the neuron, such as the genes required to create a partial synapse. From an evolutionary point of view, early neurons might have started as something like these cells, eventually gaining the ability to create a complete synapse, form axons and dendrites and create ion channels that generate fast electrical signals -- innovations which gave rise to the neuron in more complex animals such as jellyfish. Though the complete story of how the first neuron appeared remains to be told, the study demonstrates that the basic building blocks for our brain cells were forming in the ancestors of placozoans grazing inconspicuously in the shallow seas of Earth around 800 million years ago.

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A new study shows the isolation and sequencing of more than a century-old RNA molecules from a Tasmanian tiger specimen preserved at room temperature in a museum collection. This resulted in the reconstruction of skin and skeletal muscle transcriptomes from an extinct species for the first time. The researchers note that their findings have relevant implications for international efforts to resurrect extinct species, including both the Tasmanian tiger and the woolly mammoth, as well as for studying pandemic RNA viruses.

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Researchers have genetically engineered a marine microorganism to break down plastic in salt water. Specifically, the modified organism can break down polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a plastic used in everything from water bottles to clothing that is a significant contributor to microplastic pollution in oceans.

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Rivers are warming and losing oxygen faster than oceans, according to a new article. The study shows that of nearly 800 rivers, warming occurred in 87% and oxygen loss occurred in 70%.

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Scientists are trying to raise as many urchins as possible because they eat algae that could otherwise smother reef ecosystems and kill corals. Researchers have identified algae on which larval sea urchins grow into juveniles in a lab setting.

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A new article uses environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding to analyze fish and zooplankton communities. The study found that the movement of water between freshwater bodies, or freshwater connectivity, can transport eDNA. This highlights the potential of eDNA to provide a comprehensive view of freshwater biodiversity.

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A new study by researchers from the University of Bath (UK) and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Mexico) shows that flowering plants escaped relatively unscathed from the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Whilst they suffered some species loss, the devastating event helped flowering plants become the dominant type of plant today.

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Researchers are assessing the efficacy of shark sanctuaries by developing a modeling system that utilizes publicly accessible fishing data to determine shark catch and mortality rates. Their findings represent an important step in utilizing data science to tackle oceanic conservation challenges.

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A herring in the North Sea, a crab in the Wadden Sea or an anemone fish on a coral reef, ... biologists like to think in terms of individual species that all have their own place within food webs in ecosystems across the world. 'But that is surely too simplistic thinking,' researchers warn.

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The sun and the sea -- both abundant and free -- are being harnessed in a unique project to create vertical sea farms floating on the ocean that can produce fresh water for drinking and agriculture.